They considered the idea of any successors to the apostles or of any change of Christ’s laws as utterly unchristian, and did not tolerate any men of the clerical type among them. They believed that the Scriptures taught the community of goods. They held that there is no sanction in the New Testament for the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath; and that the Jewish Sabbath was one of the shadows of good things to come, which passed away on the completion of the work of Jesus on the cross. They believed themselves bound to meet together on the first day of the week, the memorial day of Christ’s resurrection, to show his death, in partaking of bread and wine, as the symbols of his body and his blood shed for the remission of sins. In their assembly they joined together in the various exercises of praise and prayer, reading the Scriptures, exhorting and admonishing one another as brethren according to their several gifts and ability; contributed of their means and saluted each other with “an holy kiss.” In the same assemblies they attended, as occasion required, to the discipline appointed by the apostles, for removing any evil that might appear in the body. When any brethren appeared among them possessing all the qualifications of the office of elders or overseers, which are marked in the apostolic writings, they thought themselves called upon to acknowledge them as brethren in that office, as the gifts of the Lord to his church. They held themselves bound to live as peaceable and quiet subjects of any government under which the providence of God placed them; to implicitly obey all human ordinances which did not interfere with their subjection to their heavenly King. The baptism of believers was cast aside as anti-Christian, except in the case of the heathen, who on conversion had made no previous confession of faith. Their mistake lay in the belief that baptism was intended to mark the mere profession of Christian faith. They failed to see that it was commanded by the Lord himself to follow upon a real believing with the heart, and a confession with the mouth. Any act called baptism prior to that is not the ordinance of Christ, and stands for nothing. The time for baptism is so soon as that believing confession and heart trust exists as a fact. So long as it remains unperformed after that there is a cessation in that particular of compliance with the divine command, which should be terminated by obedience so soon as possible. While these people were scriptural in a number of things, in others they fell far short of returning to apostolic Christianity. So we must continue our search.